The 10 best EPOS systems for UK restaurants (2026)

Of the 10 systems ranked here, 9 publish a plan price on their own website. Square, PayPal POS (Zettle), SumUp POS and Grafterr have a plan with no monthly fee. The cheapest paid plan is Epos Now, from £15/mo; the highest starting price is Toast, from £80/mo. Zonal gives a price only on request. Card fees are charged on top of the plan price; the next answer covers them.

Published in-person card rates run from 0.89% + 3p (Zonal) to 1.75% (Square and PayPal POS (Zettle)). Tabology, Grafterr, TillTech, Lightspeed Restaurant and Toast do not publish a card rate, so you only learn it from a quote.

Square, PayPal POS (Zettle), Tabology and TillTech let you leave at any time or month to month. SumUp POS (cancel at month end, after the first term), Lightspeed Restaurant (90 days notice, renews automatically) and Toast (30 days notice, renews automatically) ask for notice or set the term in your quote. Grafterr (12 to 36 months, renews automatically) and Epos Now (24 months, renews automatically) tie you in for a fixed term. Zonal does not publish its contract terms.

On our score, Square ranks first with 9.5 out of 10: no monthly fee, all plan prices published, card rate 1.75%, cancel anytime. Level on score with PayPal POS (Zettle); ranked first on the tie-break: a lower online card rate. The score covers published price, fees and contract terms, not features or support, so check the features you need on the vendor's own site.

Square, PayPal POS (Zettle), SumUp POS and Grafterr have a plan with no monthly fee. You pay a fee on each card payment instead.

Zonal, at 0.89% + 3p for an in-person card payment. A lower rate matters more as takings grow: on the same sales, every tenth of a percent is money kept.

Published online card rates: Square 1.4% + 25p; SumUp POS 2.5%. PayPal POS (Zettle), Epos Now, Tabology, Grafterr, TillTech, Lightspeed Restaurant, Toast and Zonal do not publish a separate rate for online payments.

Square, PayPal POS (Zettle), SumUp POS, Epos Now, Tabology, Grafterr, Lightspeed Restaurant and Toast publish all their plan prices. TillTech and Zonal publish some prices and quote the rest.

Published hardware prices: Square from £19; PayPal POS (Zettle) from £29. PayPal POS (Zettle): card readers are purchased (from the vendor Accessories Store or other authorised retailers). SumUp POS: hardware is purchased, under separate Purchase Terms. Epos Now: where there is no upfront payment, Epos Now keeps legal title to the hardware and it must be returned at the end of the agreement. Tabology: hardware is sold to the customer and stays the supplier's property until the Hardware & Installation invoice is paid in full. Grafterr: hardware is bought outright with full upfront payment at the time of ordering. TillTech: hardware can be rented as well as bought: a Hardware rental period ('HaaS Period') is agreed in writing, and payment may run through a finance provider. The others do not publish a hardware price.

Square, PayPal POS (Zettle), Tabology and TillTech have no fixed term, so there is no early exit fee to pay. Epos Now: sum of all remaining monthly payments to the end of the fixed period, due immediately, with a 3.5% discount if paid on receipt. Grafterr: the remaining total monthly or annual licence subscription fees for the minimum fixed term, as a lump sum. Lightspeed Restaurant: unpaid non-recurring fees, plus all recurring fees due for the rest of the Current Term, plus the difference between list price and any discounted price on software or hardware. Toast: the software subscription fees remaining for the rest of the term. SumUp POS and Zonal do not publish an early exit fee.

Epos Now, Grafterr, Lightspeed Restaurant and Toast renew automatically at the end of the term unless you give notice. We did not find a renewal term for SumUp POS and Zonal.

SumUp POS: sumUp processes the personal data of the merchant's employees and customers only as a processor on the merchant's behalf under a Data Processing Agreement. Epos Now: merchant owns its customer, transactional, sales, product and stock data; Epos Now holds a perpetual, irrevocable licence to use it to enhance and provide services (personal data anonymised or aggregated). Grafterr: user retains ownership of the information and content it inputs into the Software. TillTech: the merchant owns its customer data (transactional, sales, product and stock data); TillTech holds a perpetual, irrevocable licence to use it to improve and provide services, with personal information anonymised or aggregated. Lightspeed Restaurant: customer retains all right, title and interest in the Customer Content. We did not find a data ownership term for Square, PayPal POS (Zettle), Tabology, Toast and Zonal.

PayPal POS (Zettle) lists 16 POS systems. Tabology lists 6 payment providers. Grafterr lists 2 delivery apps. Zonal lists 1 payment provider and 2 delivery apps. The others do not publish an integration list on the pages we read.

Every system gets a score out of 10 from four lines: prices published (2 points), entry price (3), fees (2, here the in-person card rate) and contract (3). The figures come only from each vendor's own website, read and dated, and the weights were fixed before any system was scored. Ties go to the system that publishes more of its prices.

The figures on this page were read from the vendors' own websites between 9 Oct 2026 and 12 Oct 2026. Each one shows its date when you hover it, and the sources at the foot of the page list every page and date.